The doctor was a short, thick-set man, with a big round head, on which the hair, as well as the fringe of beard about his face, had long since begun to be tinged with gray.  The skin of his ruddy, mottled face was tough and indurated as a peasant’s, spending as he did most of his time in the open air, always on the go to relieve the sufferings of his fellow-creatures; while the large, bright eyes, the massive nose, indicative of obstinacy, and the benignant if somewhat sensual mouth bore witness to the lifelong charities and good works of the honest country doctor; a little brusque at times, not a man of genius, but whom many years of practice in his profession had made an excellent healer.

When he had examined Jean, still in a comatose state, he murmured: 

“I am very much afraid that amputation will be necessary.”

The words produced a painful impression on Maurice and Henriette.  Presently, however, he added: 

“Perhaps we may be able to save the leg, but it will require the utmost care and attention, and will take a very long time.  For the moment his physical and mental depression is such that the only thing to do is to let him sleep.  To-morrow we shall know more.”

Then, having applied a dressing to the wound, he turned to Maurice, whom he had known in bygone days, when he was a boy.

“And you, my good fellow, would be better off in bed than sitting there.”

The young man continued to gaze before him into vacancy, as if he had not heard.  In the confused hallucination that was due to his fatigue he developed a kind of delirium, a supersensitive nervous excitation that embraced all he had suffered in mind and body since the beginning of the campaign.  The spectacle of his friend’s wretched state, his own condition, scarce less pitiful, defeated, his hands tied, good for nothing, the reflection that all those heroic efforts had culminated in such disaster, all combined to incite him to frantic rebellion against destiny.  At last he spoke.

“It is not ended; no, no! we have not seen the end, and I must go away.  Since he must lie there on his back for weeks, for months, perhaps, I cannot stay; I must go, I must go at once.  You will assist me, won’t you, doctor? you will supply me with the means to escape and get back to Paris?”

Pale and trembling, Henriette threw her arms about him and caught him to her bosom.

“What words are those you speak? enfeebled as you are, after all the suffering you have endured! but think not I shall let you go; you shall stay here with me!  Have you not paid the debt you owe your country? and should you not think of me, too, whom you would leave to loneliness? of me, who have nothing now in all the wide world save you?”

Their tears flowed and were mingled.  They held each other in a wild tumultuous embrace, with that fond affection which, in twins, often seems as if it antedated existence.  But for all that his exaltation did not subside, but assumed a higher pitch.